7 Steps to Your Website Optin Flow

by Kristal Reagan

You have a website and you need your target market to find it. Let’s say you have a website you love, your clients love and even Google loves, is that enough? We’ve all heard the phrase, “Build it and they will come” but that’s just not true in online business. How does your target market even know you built something for them to find if you don’t tell them? They don’t, so you must “Build it and MAKE them come”!

How do you get your target market to your website?

You need an invitation that offers them something they need so badly they can’t resist! This must be in your consistent marketing plan. It’s called a No Obligation Invitation (NOI) and it’s a great tool to use in order to get your target market to your site, on your list, and into your sales funnel. Every website should have this NOI aka Free Gift. Someone comes to your site and you have an offer they can’t resist so they give you their name and email in exchange for your free gift/NOI (which is a small taste of what you offer and satisfies a need of your target market).

The purpose of the NOI is to give them a small bit of your knowledge for free so that they can make a small actionable change. It’s a way into their inbox and to guide them through your sales funnel as well as begin to build trust and keep in touch. An NOI also helps you attract your ideal client. If your NOI is absolutely in-line with your business and attracts your target market then the leads you get will be valid, they will be hungry for your services Even if they don’t hire you right away since some clients need to be at a different point of desperation before they are ready for your services. The point is they will come to you because you targeted them and made a connection.

Your NOI can be a live event, a coupon or sample, or an informational product like a report, e-book, or video, so long as it provides value.

Once you have your NOI you need to use it to funnel your leads through to your sales funnel. I call it the Optin Flow.

First, you should have your NOI just above/below your header or in the sidebar of your website as well as a dedicated page to easily lead people to your invitation using social media.

The Optin Flow:

1. Ideal client visits website
2. The ideal client gives name/email in exchange for NOI gift
3.  Ideal client redirects to the “Next Steps Page” where they are reminded to check their email and confirm their subscription and your next call to action
4.  The ideal client checks email and confirms-then redirects to the “Free Gift Page” where they actually receive their free gift from you (this page has a second call to action typically to a sales page for your offer or maybe a 15-minute consult, etc)
5. At the same time as the redirect, the ideal client receives a welcome email with a link to the “Free Gift Page” just in case the redirect was halted for any reason as well as that 2^nd call to action
6. After 2-3 days ideal client receives 2^nd email  which is a follow-up with a call to action to the sales page
7. Now you will continue your keep-in-touch strategy (typically your digital newsletter directly to their inboxes)

One of the questions I get asked is “Why do I need these redirects…AWeber, Mailchimp, and others have confirmation default pages?” My answer is this every time, “Yes they do, but none of those take your target market back to your website automatically and what we want is for our target market to visit our website as much as possible.” It’s also about branding and making a connection. Do you want AWeber to thank your prospect for joining your list OR do YOU want to thank them for joining your list?

What you offer and the next steps depend on your business and your target market and what they are hungry for and how you can best funnel them into your signature solution. Remember, simply does it, and then Just Do It! Don’t try to get everything just “perfect” because that’s going to hold you back. Get it started and then build on it. I personally am not 100% happy with my NOI funnel but it’s working and doing what I want it to and now that I have some market research I know what updates and verbiage need to be changed. You can see my NOI Funnel in action and it will take you step by step like the list above. A little feedback would be a great thing too, if you have time.